Bloomberg banned by China

Bloomberg has found that the wrath of the Chinese government can be long lasting after it found its news websites were blocked following a story about finances of the extended family of the country’s vice president.

The sites have been offline in China for five days and it is likely that they will remain that way, at least until China decides who the next leader will be.

Bloomberg announced that the sites were blocked by Chinese authorities after it published details about the multi-million dollar fortunes of Vice President Xi Jinping’s extended family.

Xi Jinping is expected to head a group of younger leaders who will take over the Communist Party from President Hu Jintao, and Premier Wen Jiabao.

The Bloomberg story said that no mysterious assets were traced to Xi, his wife or their daughter, nor was there any indication Xi intervened to advance his relatives’ business transactions, or of any wrongdoing by Xi or his extended family.

China seems determined to guard against any signs of discontent. The fact that a team of Young Turks is about to take over could destablise things further.

Bloomberg spokesperson Belina Tan told Reuters that there was no impact” to the company’s other services, including terminal feeds used by clients to access economic data and news.